Randomness Times 2

I keep thinking of little tidbits I want to blog so here's the second random post of the week:

Gripe Water 
I finally found this Gripe Water stuff that everyone has been telling me about.  I think Eric's mom was the first to mention it way back when Hannah was less than a week old and just starting to break us into the scream-fest that would become our life...Shannon kept telling me to get it too, but I couldn't find it at Whole Foods the few times I remembered to look.  I found it today! I don't know if it was always there and I was blind or if they just got it, but I now have it, and I went ahead and dosed Hannah up while in the tub, just to pre-empt the screaming that I was pretty sure would follow.  It just might have worked....That and/or the Baby Whisperer is right and it only takes 3 days to break a habit (this is night...5 I think of bedtime training).  Tonight I laid her in her crib around 8:30 after she'd eaten a big ol' dinner and for a couple minutes, she didn't make much noise.  Then she grew steadily fussier, and I could see in the monitor that she'd ooched her head up against the crib bumper so I went up and slid her back to the middle of the bed and patted her butt rhythmically for a minute or two.  She fussed for about 5 more minutes, and I haven't heard a peep since....Weird and AMAZING all at once!!!

Hair Loss
We are both losing our hair.  My runaway strands are all over the bathroom and the trash is full of the various hairballs I pull from the drain, the sink, and the corners of the floor. A couple months ago my neighbor asked me if I'd started losing my  hair yet...Noooo....was my confused reply.  She has a baby girl 2 months older than Hannah and replied that I would because it was part and parcel of the breastfeeding deal. I crossed my fingers that that particular plague would skip this house.  Oh well, I'm not visibly balding so it's no big deal.  Hannah, however, IS visibly balding.  Her hair started falling out a couple weeks ago with the male pattern baldness that Laura first noticed and pointed out.  I don't know why it was rubbing off around that part of her head because she sleeps on her belly so it seems weird that the hair would rub off the back of her head.  In the last week though she has lost most of the hair loss on the sides of her head.  This at least makes sense since she is always lying on one or the other side of her head.

Gyming It....Or Not
I've gotta re-route my attempted gym routine to suit Hannah's needs.  For a while I was going out of my mind not exercising and not having any semblance of a routine so I decided that while I couldn't force her into a routine, I could at least have a teeny bit of a routine myself so I started going back to the 6:00 classes that I liked, and I managed to go between 1 and 3 times a week.  However, since I can't force Hannah to nap until 5:00 which would make my getting to these classes a lot easier, I have decided to be flexible and find another time to fit the gym in that fits Hannah's needs better.  See, she typically wakes up from her nap around 4:00 and eats and then I leave her around 5:45.  When I get back at 7:15, she is usually starving and exhausted so I immediately start the bath and bedtime routine.  Well, she eats for eons before bed (which is good because I'm guessing that's why she's able to sleep as long as she does now--which, by the way, has been less and less but I'll get to that in a minute) so by the time she's finished and I come down to start MAKING dinner, it's 9:00.  Between running up and down the stairs to soothe her and eating, it's nearly 10:00 before I'm finished.  This is not fun for anyone because like Hannah, I am cranky when hungry and tired.  This weekend we experimented with starting her bed/bath routine at 6:30/6:45.  Although we still encountered the 2 hours of screaming, it seems to work better.  And if I'm not at the gym, I have plenty of time to make sure I eat dinner BEFORE I start the bedtime routine so I'm not all antsy and staving while feeding her. I also make sure I keep a fun book in the nursery so I can read fun stuff while she's eating; that helps me to stay patient as well.  Those night time feedings take about an hour so I gotta make 'em as relaxing and comfy as possible.  Wait--I've digressed. So yeah, the gym thing is going to happen...I don't know when yet.  I guess sometime during the days that Eric is home.  But I only like to go to classes so I'm going to have to work around that schedule a little.  And then I guess I gotta shower earlier in the day which is just annoying because I'm a night time shower-er; I like going to bed clean.  So here I go in yet another feeble attempt to be flexible...Wish me luck.

Sleeping
I think I told you the night she slept from 9 to...I think it was 7:00, right?  Anyway, the next night it was 6:30, still not bad.  Then the next night it was 5:30.  Then 4:30.  You see where I'm going with this?  Then it was like 1:50...That night Eric actually heard her before me which is crazy because 1.) I'm a way lighter sleeper, 2.) The monitor is on my side of the bed, and 3.) I've been conditioned to hear her--I usually hear the faintest stirring.  But not that night.  I guess I'd adjusted to getting some good sleep and was sleeping pretty deep.  Then last night she woke up around 2:30 I think...or was it 3:00? Anyway, point is, crying for 2 hours before bed seemed to be a good sleep aid.  Here's hoping she starts working her back in the other direction because the nights where she sleeps even just till 5:30 are pretty dang awesome.

Picture Time!!
Here's Hannah playing with her Laura doll.  (I call it her Laura doll because Laura bought it for her from an artist on Etsy and had it designed to resemble her with a tatoo and everything.)  This doll is perfect for Hannah's age because it's small enough and spindly enough for Hannah to grab easily and because it's not all fluffy--I took the fluffy stuffed animals out of her crib once she started ooching because I was afraid she'd bury her face in them. 

Another fun development: Hannah has started to be content just hanging out in her crib sometimes when she wakes up from her nap.  Today I heard her stirring a bit and when I spied on her through the monitor I saw that she had rolled over and was laying quietly on her back staring up at her mobile. I gave her a couple minutes (and myself a few more minutes to work) then went up with my camera in hand and here's what I saw:

Man is she cute!  I also took a couple videos during dinner tonight in an effort to catch her using her new cup.  I put some breast milk in it and have been giving it to her at least once a day to let her "play" with it.  She really likes it a lot though she doesn't really drink the milk...When she gets some in her mouth, she just looks confused and lets it trickle down her chin.  It's a much more positive response than with the bottles though (I guess we'll be giving up on bottle training--go ahead and pack all those unused bottles away and work on cup training)!  The video didn't turn out too good though because she stopped using the cup as soon as I started recording.  I'll keep trying, but in the meantime, I did get a funny one of her conversing with Eric.  This is just minutes before taking her up for her bath so she fluctuates back and forth from happy to moody.

And now, I'm off to bed! Eric has a double header volleyball game and will not be home until after 10:00. I'm going to use his absence as an excuse to have some terri time and an early bedtime.  I'd like to start getting up earlier (I currently sleep until she wakes up which is anytime between 6:30 and 7:30) in an effort to get a head start on the 4 hours of work I need to average in a day. I'm having trouble getting more than 3 lately....Plus now I need to throw the gym in there too...